Why is sendmail bad?

[Alexander Dalloz]

Am Do, den 24.02.2005 schrieb Josh Boyer um 21:56:

> > Even a "newbie" can do simple setups this way. The makefile under
> > /etc/mail makes it simple to rebuild the .cf file or even a service
> > restart rebuilds the .cf if .mc files were changed.
> 
> Yes, but with exim you don't need to run make.  You just edit the config file
> and you're done.

As said too, same with Sendmail: just restart the service so that it
rereads his configuration.

> > More complex setup always require a deeper understanding of the whole
> > mail server (MTA side as well IMAP/POP3 side) topic. The basic Sendmail
> > setup shipped with Fedora Core runs out-of-the-box locally. The change
> > to open it for outside connections is a 1 line change. Well
> > understandable documented.
> 
> Really?  I disagree.  I hardly know anything about mail servers, yet I exim
> allows me to run spam and virus checking by simply uncommenting one line.  And
> unlike sendmail, I didn't have to explicitly enable outside connections.

That is an argument to "improve" the default setup Sendmail is shipping
with Fedora Core.
I wonder a bit that Exim is shipped wide open to the net, because both
Sendmail and Postfix are limited to localhost with good reasons.
 
> > So with Sendmail by calling these kind of applications as a milter entry
> > in the sendmail.mc.
> 
> Sure, but a user needs to know what a milter entry is right?  And how to set it
> up to do what you need it to do, etc.  I don't have a clue what a milter entry
> is.

You don't know because you didn't read the documentation. It is ok as
you don't run Sendmail.
My argument was different: anyone running an MTA reachable from the
public internet should know well about his service. This is very obvious
for all who's daily business is mail administration.

> I'm not saying sendmail can't do equivalent (or even more) things.  I don't
> claim to know a lot about MTAs, what makes them good, what doesn't, and why one
> is better than the other.  I'm just saying that from a newbie perspective
> (mine), exim was easier for me to use.

If you feel so, ok. From reading the Exim documentation I don't have the
impression that the Exim configuration is that intuitive.

> josh

Alexander


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